


Things We Mean and What We Say

by deliciouspineapple



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-24
Updated: 2013-07-27
Packaged: 2017-12-21 04:49:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/895989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deliciouspineapple/pseuds/deliciouspineapple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Words are tricky things.  There are so many of them, in so many languages, some of them having no real translation from one to another.  And then the definitions!  Some words had more than four or five meanings, not even taking into account their root word and where the present word evolved from!  </p><p>Cecil and Carlos both find all of these words so hard to use.  One says a phrase that the other interprets differently than it was meant.  One word means something different to each man.  They're both speaking the same language and yet everything is lost in translation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This started with two fics that are sort of related that I've decided to string into a proper storyline. Hopefully it works. :} 
> 
> Forgive me I am new to AO3 so I might edit this a lot.

Words. Words were things that Cecil had to say. They flowed from him without him thinking while his eyes scanned the papers in front of him, supplying his mouth with more words to say. Usually he paid attention to them, sometimes he didn’t. The last time he read the horoscopes he wasn’t exactly paying attention—which accounted for why he needed to re-say what he had already voiced.

But now was one of those moments where his eyes were glued to the paper in front of him. His usually wildly gesturing hands were clenched tight around the paper, his breath coming quickly and raggedly while he uttered all of the terrible words he was reading.

Carlos. Dead. Carlos. His Carlos. His Carlos who never had the true chance to be his Carlos because, well, Carlos could take his own time and really Cecil was such a patient person and there was no reason to impose no matter how handsome and brilliant and—

Dead. His eyes kept coming back to it and Cecil realized his breath was coming in ragged gasps. Station Management wouldn’t like it if he kept tripping over his words like this. He had been hired for a reason. Cecil Baldwin was supposed to read the news, perfectly and precisely, as Station Management commanded. And usually he was so good at it but right now…right now…

He spat something in a whisper and flicked a switch on his soundboard. A pre-recorded word from the sponsors kicked on. Cecil waited the required three seconds to make sure it was playing before he tore his headphones off and burst from his seat. His eyes were already clouded from tears that were rolling down his cheeks and he tripped over his gangly legs before catching himself on the door. Terrible sobbing sounds welled in his throat as he rushed down the hall—nearly bulldozing over an intern as he flung open the door to the station men’s bathroom. 

Suddenly he collapsed holding onto the sink, sobbing heavily, knuckles white from how hard they had to hold to the cold porcelain to keep from hitting the even colder (and far less clean) tile floor. Cecil’s chest shuddered as he tried to fill his lungs to capacity, but as soon as they had an iota of air in them they spat it back out in the form of a wail or sob. 

Iota. Such a scientific word, Cecil had went and learned it specifically to find a moment to say it to Carlos. He had imagined, rather vividly, how intelligent he would look, finding a way to use iota in daily conversation. Think of the look he would get from Carlos! Maybe more than a muted smile, maybe a fuller one, maybe even one that showed off all those white teeth and brightened his expression! Oh but what a waste it had been. What a waste of Cecil’s time! He had spent so long building up lists of properly scientific words, rehearsing them, practicing them in the mirror just so he could use them on Carlos and now…

And now…!

Cecil sputtered out a sound he meant to be a curse but he was out of words. The radio host out of words! How poetic, depressing, pathetic. Cecil Baldwin, the man who was known for his silky voice and his many words was out of them while he coughed and sobbed hoarsely in the men’s bathroom, internally counting how much time he had before he would have to wash his face and rush back to the recording booth.

An unearthly screeching sound, which should be terrifying, suddenly brought Cecil back to reality. Lifting his head he found Khoshekh staring at him. The tragically levitating in a fixed point feline was stretched out, his paws reaching for Cecil’s white knuckles, eyes wide with sympathy and worry. Cecil sniffled and Khoshekh made his sound again. (Carlos had mentioned that Khoshekh didn’t sound like a cat and he thought that Cecil had imagined him. It wasn’t until a few of the interns had supported Cecil’s claim about the cat that he took on a worried expression and muttered that he would have to ‘investigate’ some time. Only now he wouldn’t.)

"He’ll never get to," Cecil whispered, pushing a hand forward.

Khoshekh’s paws latched onto it, pulling it to his mouth as he started to lick the ink-stained fingertips.

"Maybe he’d be able to help you," the radio host realized. "Make it so you could maybe levitate around the bathroom, not just here. You could go on cat adventures, investigating the toilets and sinks and air ducts and now look!" Cecil brushed his eyes with his free hand.

"Never."

No dates. No more talks of weekend plans that would go ignored. No more 2-minute conversations in the grocery store while they waited for the butcher to properly slaughter their beef and section off the appropriate pieces. No more whirring and blinking devices that Cecil always asked about but Carlos never seemed to explain…

There was a hiss from the bathroom door. Station Management. They obviously knew what Cecil already did—his too-short break to compose himself was drawing to a close. Khoshekh made his not-usual-cat-sound.

Standing on shaking legs Cecil recoiled his hand, washed his face, and took two deep breaths.

"I’ll be ok," he told Khoshekh and not himself.

The radio host tried a smile that not even the cat would pretend was passing as any expression other than pain. That was why Cecil was the voice of Night Vale, not the face of the city. Brushing his palm under his running nose he heard another growling and clicking noise from beyond the door.

"…Someone has to tell the news…"

He trudged back to his recording studio, knowing the new stack of papers on his desk would be full of so many words, and none of them the ones he wanted to see.

None of them.


	2. The Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos finally stops to think about what has happened to him, what Cecil means to him, and what he means to Cecil.

It had taken Carlos a good long while, but by now he thought he was used to Night Vale. Mostly. Maybe. He did have that odd twitch now, but he was sure it would pass. That only occurred when he was more stressed than usual. And really, by now Carlos had developed a sparing number of somewhat questionable techniques for dealing with his stress. A handful of them revolved around fantasizing about leaving Night Vale, mediating, and the like. Though the most effective technique, he had found, was leaving Cecil frantic messages.

Cecil. The Voice Of Night Vale who was always at Carlos’s beck and call. In the beginning, Carlos had to admit, he found it as bewildering as endearing. Cecil would answer his calls in seconds, his voice so in awe of him. Then there were those segments of Cecil’s show that centered around Carlos, Carlos and his perfect hair. It was strange. Cecil shouldn’t just publicly display his affections like that—especially when the object of his affections was…uneasy. Perfect hair. That was what Cecil liked to say. Perfect hair and perfect, dark, delicate (delicate?) skin. It was…concerning. Carlos didn’t exactly know what to do when Cecil first directed his affections at him. So much of it felt only dark, delicate skin deep. Cecil enjoyed Carlos’s appearance, which was his right and Carlos wouldn’t stop him, but…it felt like that was it. Not that Carlos didn’t enjoy Cecil’s! The man was attractive a lot—enough. Attractive enough. The twitch.

Cecil Baldwin. The man who would so enthusiastically answer the phone. The man who would rush over to wherever Carlos said he was, wide smiles and even wider eyes, oh so giddy to help. Cecil Baldwin. The man who would sometimes deflate, just a little, just enough to be noticeable, when Carlos asked for scientific aid and didn’t ask him out.

_"Carlos!" Cecil nearly tripped out of his car, bow tie askew and forgotten as he bounded over to Carlos. "You called?"_

_The man reminded Carlos of a puppy. So eager for attention, begging for it, and overjoyed when simply glanced at. It was cute but somewhat uncomfortable. Cecil’s eyes always strayed for Carlos’s thick dark mess of waves._

_"I need you to tell your Listeners about the powerful vortex around the east park playground," Carlos quickly explained._

_"O-oh," and just a little bit of Cecil’s radiant expression dwindled. "Of course!" He would attempt to smile fully, and almost make it. "Anything for science! Say, are you free this weekend?"_

_"I have more research to do, good bye Cecil."_

And then Cecil, loyal for some unknowable reason (because infatuation couldn’t account for this), would rush off. In the next five-to-ten minutes Carlos would hear Cecil back on the air, giddily explaining that he met with Carlos and his perfect hair, and that Carlos had _X Y Z_ news to inform everyone about. At least he would get the news out.

But that was then. This was now. And this now was Carlos sitting in the back of his truck, dried blood around his temple, eyes downcast at his hands. That tiny civilization shouldn’t have had the capabilities it did. Where did it even find the metal alloys required for missiles? There couldn’t just be that type of material lying around the back of the bowling alley! Or maybe it could. But what about their missile guidance and electronics systems? How did they teach themselves nuclear, chemical, and electrical engineering? Had someone been leaving them very tiny books on physics and calculus and chemical engineering? Carlos twitched and groaned as his eye pulled at the bandages and just scabbed over wounds.

It was Larry Leroy who ran over to Carlos and told him how Cecil was panicking over the airways. It was hard to believe. Carlos knew that Cecil found him physically attractive, and he seemed to be fond of his voice as well, but was there anything else to mourn? Larry shoved his radio into Carlos’s hands and tuned it to the proper station. For some reason his radio had recording capabilities… But then maybe all radios in Night Vale had recording capabilities. Meme to look into that. After dealing with the Tiny Civilization with Anti-Human Missile capabilities.

Something in Carlos sank as he listened. Cecil, stalwart on the air in most situations, childishly giddy when talking about Carlos, and obviously annoyed when talking about Steve Carlsburg was… Well first he sounded as though he were hurt. He was trying so hard to convince himself that Carlos would come and visit—and Carlos did think… No. No he didn’t. He had no intention of going. He was going the make up a reason later… But then it got worse.

There Cecil was, crying and terrified, because Carlos (his Carlos) might be dead. And to be honest…Carlos didn’t know what to do.

_"…can’t. I can’t. I’m still holding this trophy. …I… We go now to this puh… Pre-recorded service announcement."_

_And then a rushed shuffling._

Shame and other painful emotions moved through Carlos. He quietly told Larry Leroy to send word to Cecil that he was alive. Larry said that Cecil would be overjoyed. He deserved to be. And then Carlos left, getting into his car and driving until he, for some reason, hit the Arby’s. And this was where he was, looking at his hands and the flecks of dingy brown that stained his jeans, knuckles bruised and scuffed… He sighed and turned his palm over, staring at the phone sitting within it.

Enough time had passed, Cecil would have heard Carlos, _his Carlos_ , was alive. He was probably celebrating, maybe even thanking the Apache Tracker for saving his life—something Carlos had meant to do but in all the confusion.

"Thank you…" he murmured, looking at the sky.

Knowing Night Vale the Apache Tracker probably heard that. Hell, the Apache Tracker was probably wandering the streets as some spirit, raving about his new Indian Magics. Indian Magics. Magic. Carlos pinched the bridge of his nose.

[Message to: Cecil Baldwin I want to see you. Meet me at the Arby’s parking lot.]

[Sent]

Carlos brushed his lips and found soot—maybe a minuscule amount of rocket fuel there, and slid his phone into his lab coat pocket. Fifteen minutes later the blinding flash of a pair of headlights flooded Carlos’s vision. He shut his eyes and took in a breath. More than perfect hair. More than delicate dark skin. Cecil thought he was more than beautiful. Cecil cared, which was more than Carlos could say for the roving pods of strangers he was in usual contact here in Night Vale.

And he had cried. Carlos may be absorbed in his work, and books, and previously clocks, but he knew that people who cried didn’t do it for no reason. Not tears like the ones he heard Cecil shedding. Those were real, and he deserved something concrete for his emotional trauma. And, frankly, Carlos needed someone. He needed someone who…saw him as more than just a scientist with perfect hair.

"What is it?" Cecil rushed from his car. "Whu, What danger are we in? What mystery needs to be explored?"

Carlos wanted to laugh. Eager little puppy so used to Carlos’s more insensitive calls. The last few times he had answered them just as so. To think that Carlos had sparingly preferred those answers. Now he wanted Cecil’s dumb infatuated smile—the one that sometimes felt too wide for his face…

"Nothing," Carlos shook his head. "After everything that happened…" his eyes rose from his hands and rested on Cecil’s. "…I just wanted to see you," he admitted with a little smile tugging his lips.

 _Ah_. There it was. There was Cecil’s sweet, boyish, excited puppy-ish smile. It made Carlos so happy to see it. Genuine emotion. So pure and so…so…Cecil.

"Oh?" His voice shook as he spoke, shaking from his own exuberance.

Another little chuckle and Carlos let his eyes wander. They found the crimson and yellow obelisk to the west, slowly creeping towards the horizon line. For some reason, that made it easier for him to smile.

"I used to think it was setting at the wrong time… But then I realized, that time doesn’t work in Night Vale." He thought for a moment. "And that none of the clocks are real." As he spoke Cecil took a seat on the back of his truck with him, looking at the sun as it set. "Sometimes," Carlos continued, “things seem so strange or malevolent and then you find that underneath it was something else altogether, something…pure…and innocent…"

Which he meant to refer to more than the setting sun, but he was sure the double meaning was lost on Cecil. He had never known Carlos’s discomfort…

"I know what you mean," Cecil said, his voice more soothing than Carlos remembered.

It dulled the pain in his head. It made Carlos smile, his eyes slide over to Cecil, down his neck, down his shirt, and down to his hand. Too much too fast. There was…there had to be a protocol for this…but Carlos needed something. So he let his hand to the thinking, and it seemed to think pretty fine without his brain, as it moved over Cecil’s knee. Cecil seemed to chuckle nervously, happily, and he silently put his head on Carlos’s shoulder.

Warm. Carlos smiled as he carefully pillowed his waves against Cecil’s hair. Night Vale. It was a place that defied all laws of physics on a daily basis. It commited more crimes against humanity and reality than Carlos could count (anymore). It was filled with angels and glowing clouds and vortexes to other worlds… But it also had Cecil Baldwin.

Sweet, genuine, perfect _Cecil Baldwin_. And for the first time in a long while, almost a year if Carlos counted the months (if time really made sense here, which was questionable, so it might have been more than a year), Carlos felt at home. Not in Night Vale, but here, here with Cecil Baldwin’s head on his shoulder.

And that was _neat_.


	3. In A Word: Dating

Carlos hasn't really dated much before Night Vale and Cecil.  He knows the general idea of what a date should be, he's seen enough TV shows and read enough books to know the general outline of what is expected on a date but his lack of practical experience may be an issue.

            There was some sort of protocol to this, maybe a guide.  Carlos stopped and thought.  Addendum: maybe there is a guide _not_ phrased to make Carlos feel as though he were an imbecile for not knowing a rather complicated social convention.

            In a word: _dating_.

            It was hardly a revolutionary concept.  Hell, people had been dating for millenniums at this point.  It should be practically instinct for human beings at this point—why in the world wasn’t it?  Everyone did it, to varying degrees of effectiveness but that wasn’t the point.  The point was that Carlos had been staring at his phone for nearly an hour, trying to figure out how to make this call, and he had come up with zero theories.   This was one of those scientific moments where _zero_ was a very undesirable number.  That meant that there was nothing, nothing at all going through Carlos’s head that could aid him in asking Cecil on a date. 

            Cecil.  Cecil who called every day now to say hi.  Cecil who still fawned over Carlos every other day on the radio.  Cecil who was so painfully in love with Carlos and _of course_ Carlos knew it, everyone in Night Vale knew it, and everyone in Night Vale was waiting for Carlos to do something about it.  Not that he didn’t want to!  He _so_ wanted to, especially now, since he could recognize Cecil’s feelings as genuine and beyond skin deep.  The problem was…well… 

            Carlos hadn’t been much of a date-r…ever, really, to be honest.  It was something he never thought about.  In school and college he was so focused on learning, science, thesis, dissertation, and finding a research sight and a job and…  _Decidedly not dating_.

            So here he was.  Sitting in front of his phone.  Staring at the device wishing it could simply do his job for him, and then amending that wish because in a place like Night Vale something like that could come true.  Then his phone would call Cecil every time Carlos thought of him, maybe even when Carlos dreamed— _no.  Not thinking those thoughts._   Carlos snatched his phone and took a deep breath.

            “I am a _scientist_ ,” he told himself,  “I can do this.  I managed to woo Cecil a week ago after I had taken a miniature rocket to my cranium.  This is simple.”

            Carlos held his phone, thumb hovering over Cecil’s speed dial.  Cecil didn’t know it, but he had been on Carlos’s speed dial for a while now.  Even if for a while Carlos didn’t call for personal reasons he did call for important reasons, and going through his contact list (no matter how small) seemed like too much work and really this was so convenient and this was a rather rambling thought, wasn’t it?  The scientist took a deep breath and brushed his free hand through his dark waves.

            A second later he put his head on the desk, one arm still holding his phone up, and let out a low and pained groan.

“…Maybe I need another rocket to the cranium.”

(Un?)Fortunately, the society of tiny people who lived behind lane 5 at the bowling alley hadn’t made it to his home yet.  In fact, they had hardly gotten down the street from where they started.  Children with uzis and cars were treacherous things for people two inches in height.  Also, magnifying glasses had been found both effective and entertaining in burning the little people in a manner Archimedes would fawn over.

The phone in his hand was cold and Carlos took a breath.  Picking his head up he glared at the device.  He forced his thumb to hit the speed dial.

_Dial tone._

_Dial tone._

Maybe— 

“Helloooo?”  Cecil’s silky voice cooed on the other end.

“Hello Cecil.”

“Carlos!!”  Silky smooth turned to excited puppy in about .02 seconds—new record for Cecil.  “How can I help you?  What science is there to be done?”

“Not science today Cecil I—”

“Oh something I have to tell the Listeners?  Hold on, I need a pen and paper, _one second one second!_ ”

“N-no, wait, Cecil!”

But there was a hasty tap and scurry from the other end.  Carlos shifted uncomfortably in his seat as he listened to Cecil.  Then Carlos heard a shuffle and a high-pitched _yip_ followed by the sound of something breaking.

“STEVE CARLSBURG!”  Cecil shouted.

Blinking, Carlos pulled the phone from his ear and stared at it.  _Steve Carlsburg?_   What did that man have to do with anything?  Was he at Cecil’s house?  No that didn’t make any logical sense.  Cecil held nothing but contempt for that man.  What was he doing talking about him?”

“Cecil…?”

Panicked shuffling and then the sound of something falling into a chair.  There was scratching and fumbling from the other end before soft panting.  Carlos could practically see Cecil’s face accented with pink.

“Sorry, sorry!  I broke a plate and that’s maybe the fourth one this month and it’s ok!  I have a pen and paper so just let me know what I’m telling the Listeners!  It’s something about the clocks again, isn’t it?”

“No I’m not calling about the clocks—”

“Ohhh have you found a potential cure for that screaming rash?  Old Woman Josie says that her neighbors have it and those rashes scream all through the night.  In fact she called in to the show to say that the Angels said—” 

“I’m working on a topical ointment for that but at the moment all it has done to the test subjects is—No wait I’m not calling about that—”

“Is this about the endemic of rubber-eating squirrels?  I thought that pesticide you synthesized was doing the trick?”

“The pesticide is—Cecil I was trying to—” the scientist attempted to speak quicker in order to keep Cecil host from cutting him off but, of course, Cecil cut right back in.

“Oh!  You finally got—”

“I have no weekend plans!”  Carlos shouted into the phone frantically. 

Silence.

Oh dear.  He did it wrong.  He asked the wrong way.  Carlos knew there was a specific protocol, a script, a procedure to this!  How did he not find it?  He had searched everywhere and perhaps _Dating for Dummies_ would have been a good source but damn his ego he didn’t want to be seen with a book titled with the word ‘dummies’! 

Suddenly a breath.

Carlos was holding his.  Since when did he hold his breath?  Other than when he was swimming or dunking his head in the tub, of course!

“Are…Carlos…are you _saying_ …” Cecil’s voice turned from inquisitive about science to hopefully hyper.

Carlos swallowed back his mounting fear.  _I can do this.  I have a PhD in Physics.  Asking out one man isn’t impossible.  I can **do.  THIS.**_  

“I’m free on Saturday.  Would you li…” his voice died out for a moment and he had to go and recapture it.  “ _Like_ to go out with me…?  For…for dinner?” 

Carlos could practically feel it as the air shifted, he could see Cecil’s expression go from hopeful to absolute elation.  He could feel it through the phone as the radio host began to shake with unbridled joy.

“WHY CARLOS!”  He practically shrieked into the phone, making Carlos jerk the phone away for a second.  “Of course!  Of course of course!  Oh my, _oh my_ , ok, I’ll see you Saturday _oh my_ I’m so excited!”  Cecil broke down in a fit of rapturous giggles before inhaling.  “Ok!  Ok!  I’ll see you then!  _Oh my!!!_ ”

Cecil hung up a moment later.  Smiling to himself Carlos took the phone from his ear.

Easy.


End file.
